Tag Archives: drill optimisation

Hexagon’s Mining division expands with dedicated underground mining portfolio

Hexagon’s Mining division has, today, introduced HxGN Underground Mining, an integrated sensor-software portfolio built for the unique challenges of underground environments, at its HxGN LIVE Global 2023 event in Las Vegas.

Featuring what it says are robust systems for collision avoidance, drill optimisation and production planning, the new portfolio helps mines to achieve the best results while protecting drivers, pedestrians and equipment in the most demanding environments.

For Hexagon’s Mining division, meanwhile, it enables the company to further diversify its revenue stream, which is currently skewed towards the open-pit mining sector.

Hexagon says today’s announcement responds to industry demand as more mines push deeper beneath the surface for deposits and face ever more complex conditions. The aim is to provide mines transitioning from open-pit to underground operations – or those mining orebodies from surface and underground simultaneously – with a holistic solution for the life of mine.

HxGN Underground Mining, the company says, effectively creates a seamless technology transition from open pit to underground mining. Its safety suite, for example, leverages collision avoidance and operator alertness systems proven in more than 40,000 vehicles worldwide in open-pit environments.

Similar integration is at work in the portfolio’s operations suite, which helps mine operators and supervisors to manage underground fleet equipment and to optimise production in real time via a dynamic activity scheduler and fleet management system (HxGN MineOperate UG Pro fleet management system). Engineers, via the HxGN MinePlan Underground Engineering product, can avoid flawed mining processes and minimise downtime by using 3D visualisation, and CAD tools to create mine designs and activity-based schedules, the company says.

The portfolio’s optimisation software for production and development enables mines to achieve consistent blasting outcomes with high-precision drilling and optimal set-up processes. The company added to this portfolio recently with the incorporation of Minnovare. The Australia-based company has established four solutions – The Azimuth Aligner, Development Optimiser™, Production Optimiser™ and Minnovare Core – to improve the speed, cost and accuracy of underground drilling.

Beyond benefitting business, better drilling practices are good for the planet, reducing CO2 emissions and supporting sustainability goals, Mateus Quintela, Hexagon’s Head of Product, Underground Mining, said.

“We know mines are looking for ways to mine smarter, safer and in more environmentally and socially conscious ways,” Quintela says.

“HxGN Underground Mining will help our customers answer this search by increasing the efficiency of machines and miners throughout the operation. Well-choreographed scheduling will minimise the downtime of working areas, like headings and stopes, and there’s a real opportunity to reduce diesel emissions through better truck-to-loader planning.

“Perhaps most importantly, our new portfolio offers ways to ensure operators and supervisors are capturing and using safety data, so whether above ground or below it, everyone gets home safely.”

IMDEX signs agreement with Tier 1 miner to fast-track development of MAGHAMMER

IMDEX has signed a joint development agreement with a Tier One mining company to fast-track development of the IMDEX MAGHAMMER™ for commercial use, according to Chief Executive Paul House (pictured).

The MAGHAMMER uses a hybrid drilling technique combining rotary diamond drilling with fluid driven percussive drilling to achieve higher penetration rates compared with conventional coring. The technology enables an entire drill hole to be completed with a coring rig where RC and diamond drilling is required, according to the company.

IMDEX only exercised its option to acquire Flexidrill and its patent-protected drilling productivity technologies, COREVIBE and MAGHAMMER, in December, but it had carried out test work on the MAGHAMMER technology far in advance of the transaction.

Speaking at the company’s AGM this week, House reported a new rental fleet record and month-on-month increases in revenue since May as IMDEX recovered from a COVID-19-related downturn earlier in the year.

With the strength of the gold price and other key commodities, and exploration activity surging, IMDEX’s tool rental fleet is 19% up on the same time last year and exceeds the previous record set in 2012, the company said.

House told the AGM that the recommencement of activity globally since May had continued in most regions, albeit at different speeds.

“We achieved revenue of A$61.4 million ($43.5 million) in Q1 2021 (September quarter of 2020), which was up 26% on Q4 2020 (June quarter of 2020),” House said. “This result is only slightly behind the previous corresponding year at A$67.6 million, or 4.9% on a constant currency basis.”

House said the company is seeing multi-commodity demand, with clients “well-funded” and focused on resuming sustained activity as soon as possible.

The pressures of COVID-19, which forced various governments to impose border and travel restrictions, created strong demand for IMDEX technologies linked to its cloud-based IMDEX HUBIQ™, the company said.

“We have made great progress both because of and in spite of COVID-19,” House said. “The global pandemic has increased demand for our connected technologies that support remote operations. Conversely, it has hindered client trials due to limited access to site for non-essential personnel.

“On balance, the momentum for disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, and the industrial internet of things is gaining cadence.

“The outlook for mining tech is brighter than it has ever been.”

On top of the MAGHAMMER reveal, House said client trials of the award-winning IMDEX BLAST DOG™ had resumed.

IMDEX BLAST DOG is a semi-autonomously deployed system for logging material properties and blasthole characteristics at high spatial density across the bench and mine and is commodity agnostic.

Just last month, the technology, being developed in collaboration with Universal Field Robots and tested at Anglo American’s Dawson coal mine in Queensland, won the Greyhound Innovation (METS) Award at the 2020 Queensland Mining Awards.